


rock me asleep

by EllisLuie



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Hargreeves as Family, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Klaus has Glamorous New Nausea Powers, Klaus misses Dave, Nightmares, Not Season 2 Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post Season 1, Reginald as a ghost - Freeform, Sober Klaus Hargreeves, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:48:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26154466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllisLuie/pseuds/EllisLuie
Summary: His siblings can't know Daddy Dearest has decided to haunt them, because they only barely managed to avoid the apocalypse and Klaus doesn't think they'll be that lucky a second time. But trying to deal with Reginald on his own has unforeseen and unpleasant consequences.
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves & Everyone, Klaus Hargreeves & Reginald Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 115
Kudos: 720
Collections: Fics where the Hargreeves siblings live in the Academy together





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started this fic because a) I have a problem and b) it's a nice break from my other fics. The chapters are short and fun to write during downtime. Also I enjoy torturing Klaus :)

Shockingly, Klaus doesn’t notice him at first.

In his defence, he’s still struggling to acclimatize to the parade of ghosts that crowd every room he enters now that he’s clean as a whistle and achingly sober. He remembers, vaguely, what it had been like when he was much younger, before the alcohol and drugs carried him away from it all, and he knows that, somehow, tiny Four must have found a way to survive it. But he’s long forgotten how, exactly, to function as normal with the ghosts pressing in around him, constantly crying and whispering and screaming in his ear, and without his usual fallback, he’s taken to just pretending the ghosts aren’t there.

This is about as successful as can be expected, which is to say, not at all. 

Regardless, he’s always been stubborn, and this particular stubbornness is born out of deep desperation to stay sober and still, somehow, keep whatever sanity he’s managed to cling to over the years. So he strains to ignore the sobbing, the begging, the dripping of the blood and scraping of exposed bone, and he has a lifetime of experience in fooling himself into thinking it’s working. 

(He falters more times than he’ll ever admit, resolve waning as the itch under his skin sinks deeper, flares brighter, and they never _shut up,_ never give him a moment’s peace, and he just wants some goddamn silence, an hour to sleep without hearing them cursing his name, threatening to puncture his flesh and hollow out his eyes - )

(But Ben, infuriating and often unwelcome guardian ghost that he is, always manages to pull him back from the edge. As much as Klaus begs and snaps and _needs_ , Ben is always an unwavering opposition, alternately coaxing and threatening as required until Klaus sits back and breathes. When it’s really bad, when Klaus hasn’t slept in three days and can barely stand without keeling over but still the ghosts won’t let him rest and he knows relief is just a few streets away, tucked away in a grubby pocket somewhere, Ben is enough of an asshole to bring out the big guns. He doesn’t hesitate to say _Dave_ and doesn’t flinch when Klaus answers _Fuck you_ and he stays by his side as Klaus rides it out. Sometimes he apologizes, and occasionally he even means it.)

(Klaus will never admit how close he gets to relapsing to the rest of their siblings, and Ben will never tattle on him.)

Klaus finds it a source of pride that the rest of their fucked up family don’t notice anything amiss in his behaviour, even when they have to repeat themselves or fight to attract his attention. Sometimes they get frustrated and suspicious, and Klaus is somehow both relieved and hurt when Five and Luther assume he’s just high. Ben calls him an idiot, but Klaus is ignoring all naughty ghosties, so he doesn’t deign to respond.

The point is, Klaus is permanently, like, 63% distracted, both determined to pretend the ghosts aren’t there and incapable of stopping himself from twitching at their every move. Most of the time, whatever room he finds himself in is so loud and crowded he can barely tell when a living person enters, nevermind when another dead bastard joins the fray. 

So he doesn’t notice for a while. 

It’s not until the asshole manages to push his way to the front of the crowd on a day when it’s relatively quiet that Klaus realizes he’s there. It’s not a pleasant realization.

“I’m not sure that’s physically possible,” Vanya is saying, curled up in a small insecure ball at the end of the couch. 

Klaus is sprawled out carelessly beside her, but he has absolutely no idea what she’s talking about. He squints and manages to make out Five in the armchair nearby, presumably engaged in some kind of conversation with her, but Klaus has been pointedly _not_ hearing the furious yelling of the old lady with a gaping hole in her cheek for the past twenty minutes, so he’s a little out of the loop. He doesn’t actually remember Vanya or Five entering the room, let alone talking. He struggles to stay focused on them.

Five huffs impatiently. “And yet, I look like a thirteen-year-old boy,” he says, mouth twisted in distaste. “Clearly the equations were off, but if I can find where I went wrong and correct them - ”

“Number Five’s arrogance has always been his greatest weakness,” a voice says from behind Klaus’s shoulder, and for a moment, he can’t help but tiredly agree. “That and his unfortunate predisposition to sentimentality.”

That’s what catches his attention, really, because Klaus has definitely heard Five described as arrogant before - most notably by Diego and Allison - but _sentimental_?

Klaus jerks his head around, a distant kind of horror sinking into his bones because he’s slowly, too slowly, beginning to realize he recognizes that voice. Sure enough, he spots Sir Reginald fucking Hargreeves himself standing regally behind the couch, frowning at them all.

Immediately, Klaus vaults from his seat.

He spins around, breath catching in his throat, eyes wide, and Reginald is still there, observing him with his signature judgmental detachment. 

“Klaus?” Vanya says, brow wrinkling, and Five is looking at him with open curiosity. 

“Uh,” he says, then laughs, even though nothing about this is funny. But he can’t seem to stop, because Daddy Dearest is glaring at him, expression so familiar that for a wild moment Klaus genuinely wonders if he’s somehow sixteen again (or maybe he’s dead, maybe he skipped the greyscale meadow and bitchy little girl this time), and Five and Vanya are sitting there like this is all completely fine.

“Seeing your powers from this side of the equation is quite illuminating,” Reginald says, cool as ever, and he doesn’t seem the slightest bit fazed by the handful of spirits thronged around him. He does make sure to pitch his voice high enough to be heard over the general din, though, and Klaus really wishes he wouldn’t.

“Nope,” Klaus says, and it comes out a little strangled but he thinks that’s pretty fucking impressive anyway considering he’s currently struggling to remember how to breathe. “No, nope.” He flashes his left hand - _goodbye_ \- but their father is and always will be a stubborn bastard, dead or alive, and doesn’t waver.

Klaus has had to adopt a few different strategies to survive his new sobriety, and one of them is that if bad ghosties don’t want to play nice, they don’t get to play at all. He’s still trying to figure out how, exactly, to make them piss off, which is a shame since he’s pretty sure figuring out that neat little trick will improve his quality of life by a metric _shit-ton_ , but until then he has to make do. Him making do generally means turning tail and leaving, even if that means insulting his siblings’ delicate sensibilities, and sometimes it doesn’t even work because ghosts are dicks fully capable of following him. Occasionally they get the message, though, and some of them prefer to hover over Five’s shoulder and yell obscenities at him rather than continue to harass Klaus, which is nice. 

Unfortunately, the chances of Reginald Hargreeves actually doing anything to make Klaus’s life easier are slim to none. One (Four) can dream, though.

Five makes a displeased noise as Klaus spins on his heel and does his best not to run from the room, and it’s entirely possible he’s hurt Vanya’s feelings, which is something they’ve all been trying to avoid since her almost world-ending tantrum, but oh well. By now, Vanya should have realistically low expectations of him, and he can always try to apologize later, preferably with less nosy dead fathers hanging around.

There are no new ghosts in the hallways to the bedrooms, and only a handful of Five’s entourage bothers to tag along behind him, so Klaus finds his room bearably quiet for once. It must be his lucky day, because he doesn’t even turn to find any delusional dead billionaires waiting for him, either. That’s more than alright with Klaus because hopefully it means Reggie will work through all his displeasure and lectures with his oblivious siblings and run out of steam before finding his way back. If the universe is even slightly kind, Reginald will resolve whatever unfinished business he deems so important and disappear back to the afterlife without ever showing his face to the only one who can see it again.

Until then, Klaus can sequester himself away in his room and pray to any little girls who may listen that their father’s visit is a short one.


	2. Chapter 2

“You look constipated.”

Through years of practice, Klaus manages to direct his rude gesture in the right direction without opening his eyes. He knows he’s sent it the right way because Ben blows a raspberry at him, which is delightfully undignified and also incredibly mean because he always waits until Klaus isn’t looking to do childish stuff like that. For a ghost that’s been doggedly following him around for thirteen long, long years, Klaus has rarely been able to catch him in his unladylike moments, even though Ben has seen him from plenty of his own disgraceful angles. Bastard.

“Seriously, don’t blow a blood vessel or anything. This would be such an embarrassing way to die.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Klaus finally says, opening his eyes to glare. 

Ben is lounging against the door without a care in the world, which tells Klaus that a) he has no idea dear Papa has stopped by, and b) that sweet innocent Ben has finally gotten bored of spying on Diego and Luther for the day. He likes to make note of the weird shit they do when they think they’re alone and then announce it to the room during family dinners when Klaus manages to make him corporeal. You’d think by now Luther would have learned to stop picking his nose, but alas, no.

“Banishing or summoning?” Ben asks instead of acknowledging Klaus’s indignation, which is completely par for the course. 

Huffing, Klaus unfolds himself from the pretzel he’d managed to tie himself into and pointedly blows out the candle next to his knee. “Banishing,” he says moodily. “Trying to get a moment’s peace in this place.” He thinks the look he aims at his brother is incredibly eloquent, but Ben, unfortunately, does not rise to the bait, which is boring. 

Ben makes a show of looking around the room, taking in the three spirits stationed around like gargoyles. They’re not screaming, which is nice, but the one in the corner hasn’t stopped murmuring a steady stream of German for the past two hours, and it’s beginning to get a little grating. 

“Right. Making progress, I see,” Ben says, far too dryly for Klaus’s sensibilities. 

Klaus scowls at him but doesn’t flip him off again, because that would be too predictable. 

“I’m pretty sure I gave Margaret over there seasickness,” he says petulantly, gesturing to the old woman by the window who makes a face at him. She doesn’t look happy, but that might be due to the intestines spilling over her hands rather than his general charm, hard to say. “She didn’t  _ leave,  _ but at least she felt something.”

His brother doesn’t look nearly impressed enough by this, which Klaus thinks is entirely unfair, since this is more progress than he’s ever made before.

“So you can make ghosts feel queasy,” Ben says slowly. “Awesome.”

Klaus growls a little bit under his breath, but there isn’t any real heat to it. Ben’s an asshole, but he’s kind of earnt the right to be a dick over the past decade, so it doesn’t really chafe as much as it might otherwise. Besides, it’s no fun to argue with a dead guy - it’s almost impossible to win. How do you trump the dead card? He thought it might get easier, now that he’s actually died himself, but apparently resurrecting somehow negates that. Completely unfair that Ben is the one that makes the rules on this. Bastard.

“You missed lunch again,” Ben says, idly watching as Klaus throws the candles onto his bed and promptly follows suit. “You’re making a habit of it.”

It’s hard to dramatically roll your eyes when your face is buried in blankets, but Klaus makes a go of it anyway. “What’s one more bad habit,” he says breezily, though it’s entirely possible Ben can’t understand what the fuck he’s saying, due to the aforementioned blankets. Ben, however, is practically a mind reader when it comes to Klaus’s bitchy tendencies. 

“You have to be at dinner,” Ben continues. “One, because Diego might actually come up here and drag your ass out if you aren’t, and two, because I saw Five with that mannequin earlier and need to expose the little weirdo’s gooey side.”

Klaus considers. “Fine. But I’m not saying it if I can’t make you a real boy. You could get away with it because you’re the tragically dead one, but Five would actually eviscerate me if I dared besmirch his reputation, even on your behalf.”

“Deal.”

German dude in the corner finally stops his weird soliloquy, giving them a lovely reprieve for precisely one breath before he starts treating them to some truly horrific sounding coughing, deep and guttural like he may hack up a lung, which Klaus really doesn’t want to see. Ben grimaces in distaste and waves a hand between Klaus and the (other) dead guy as if telling him ‘do something, please, before he paints the corner a stunning new shade of red’, except Ben isn’t usually that poetic, so he probably isn’t saying that at all.

“Yugh,” Klaus says, halfheartedly sticking out his hand -  _ goodbye _ \- and shaking it, jazz-hand style. “Take it somewhere else, buddy.”

His fingers feel a little bit tingly, like the beginnings of a deep weed high, and German dude does, in fact, stop coughing to look at him incredulously. His stupid sweaty forehead wrinkles for a moment and his eyes go a little funny, like he’s about to puke, and then he - flickers, just a little. One second he’s as clear as can be, a perfect replica of a living person aside from the various gunshot wounds, and the next he’s the faintest bit transparent, the scribbled eye Klaus had drawn on his wall when he was twelve peeking through the dude’s shoulder. Huh.

“Huh,” Ben says. “Would you look at that.”

Klaus is looking, though he isn’t quite sure he’s believing. German dude looks like he’s having a hard time believing it too, staring down at his hands with a slack jaw. He isn’t banished, but he isn’t coughing anymore, so honestly? Good enough.

Klaus sticks a finger in the ghost’s face. “Not another peep out of you, mister,” he says firmly, ignoring the dazed part of his brain currently screaming  _ what the fuck _ at him.

“Okay,” Ben says from behind him. “Maybe making them queasy is progress. Well done.”

The praise is unfamiliar and makes him feel all kinds of weird, so he pushes it aside to deal with never. German dude looks sufficiently cowed, so Klaus dares to turn his back on him, eyeing Margaret and the quiet cowboy-esque fucker suspiciously. Neither of them spontaneously starts yelling, though Margaret looks vaguely mutinous and the cowboy might just be quiet because of the gaping wound in his throat that definitely isn’t going to give Klaus nightmares about Allison tonight.

“Well, brother mine,” Klaus says, forcing himself to save the imminent freakout for later. “I think it might be time to try summoning.”

Ben grimaces, which is entirely fair, since previous experience has taught both of them that attempts at summoning usually end in frustration and, occasionally, a spike in cravings and subsequent arguments. Unlike banishing, Klaus has actually made some headway into summoning, and he’s now relatively good at yanking Ben to his side whenever he wishes, though that usually earns him several hours of scowls and insults because Ben’s a little bitch who hates having his ghostly shenanigans interrupted. And while Klaus hasn’t tried summoning many other ghosts, because why would he want to see more of their ugly faces, he’s reasonably certain he  _ could  _ if he wanted to. Unfortunately, he still can’t seem to summon the one ghost he desperately wants to see, which. Really sucks.

Still, if he’s making progress in giving ghosts upset tummies - which is especially impressive considering ghosts don’t technically have tummies - maybe his powers will cooperate with him for once. He could put up with all the feral ghosts in the world, he thinks, as long as he had Dave with him.

Reluctantly, Ben follows him to the floor, where Klaus tucks his legs under himself and shakes out his shoulders. Ben shoves his hands into his hoodie pocket, looking around warily, but doesn’t say anything, which is much appreciated. Klaus much prefers having Ben around when he tries this, because sometimes a nasty ghostie thinks he’s calling out for them and decides to pop up and crash the party, and it’s easier to keep himself from panicking when Ben is there to act as a buffer.

(The first time Klaus had tried summoning on his own, he’d still been riding the adrenaline high of making Ben corporeal for the first family dinner, and he’d unwittingly summoned a handful of ghosts from downstairs and then made them tangible, which had been very Not Fun. Since then, if he accidentally starts making ghosts real, Ben is typically around to talk him down.)

“Don’t forget dinner,” Ben says.


	3. Chapter 3

Dinner is the usual boring affair. 

Klaus graciously bows and accepts the unending praise from his siblings as he selflessly makes Ben corporeal before taking his seat (well, he spreads his arms and nods at Diego when he hums approvingly, but same thing), and then promptly tunes them all out.

He’s exhausted, both because he’s currently on day two of not being able to sleep and because three and a half hours of straining to make his powers do what he wants for once is a bit of a stretch, but neither of those things is going to be resolved by missing dinner, so. Might as well give Ben a little sibling time, god knows why he wants to put up with them. At least he can carry the conversation without bothering Klaus. He’s absurdly glad to no longer be a dead man’s mouthpiece, even if their siblings would listen now.

Klaus just picks at his green beans, because Mom’s cooking smells as delicious as ever but his stomach has always been rebellious, particularly when he’s tired and distracted. Diego might nag him later, since he’s picked up an annoying tendency to monitor Klaus’s life, but he can go fuck himself because Klaus is completely uninterested in expelling his guts. Maybe he can get Ben to divert Diego’s mother-henning.

Speaking of Ben, he suddenly does his best to break Klaus’s ribs with his elbow.

“ _ Ow,  _ what the fuck, asshole,” Klaus hisses, jerking away. Ben looks thoroughly unapologetic and unimpressed, pointedly nodding to the rest of the table. Reluctantly, Klaus turns to the others. “Yes, dear family?”

Ugh, their heavy gazes make his skin itch. 

“Are you alright?” Vanya asks, and to her credit, she does look genuine. “You seemed a bit … funny, earlier.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m peachy. Just hilarious,” he says brightly. “You know me.” 

She purses her lips in a way that suggests no, she doesn’t, actually, but she also doesn’t know what else to say because she may have more of a voice lately but she’s still painfully uncertain of her role around them. Usually, Klaus tries to reaffirm her place in their family, because she’s his sister and they absolutely do not need another apocalypse to round off the summer, but in this case, he’d really rather prefer to not encourage further questions.

Alas, his other siblings are decidedly less easy to discourage.

Luther coughs a little awkwardly, shifting in his seat and sharing a look with Allison, who arches an eyebrow at him. 

“Uh, Klaus,” Luther says, and it’s almost sweet how much he’s obviously trying to not sound like an overbearing dickhead. The success is debatable, but it’s the thought that counts, right? “Diego says you’re, you know - sober, which is, uh, great, really. Is that - are you - still?”

He’s like a teddy bear, Klaus thinks fondly. Or like a big puppy dog. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that behind all that brainless muscle is a man with less social skill than a thirteen-year-old pensioner who spent forty years in an apocalyptic wasteland. Twenty years with just his equally stunted siblings followed by a few years with a monkey butler and robotic maid followed by four years on the actual moon - it’s a wonder he ever managed to get that furry to follow him into bed, truly. Although, admittedly he has an unfair advantage with furries: he probably doesn’t even need to open his mouth to seduce them.

Eugh, bad thoughts, move on.

“Regrettably, I am, in fact, stone-cold sober,” Klaus drawls, resting his chin on the palm of his hand. “Or does no one else see little Benny here?”

Ben rolls his eyes, but it’s worth it to see the embarrassed look on Luther’s face.

“Right,” their biggest brother says. “Yeah. Just - you know. Making sure. You’ve been acting weird.”

That’s true, so Klaus just hums in agreement. They can draw their own conclusions about that, their own theories, because unless they outright ask, Klaus has no plans of telling them about his constant headache. Ben always gets all huffy because he doesn’t understand why he doesn’t just tell them, but he also has to admit they’ve never actually asked either of them, so. Two-way street.

“Of course he has,” Five says primly. “He’s Klaus.”

Klaus points a fork at him, nodding emphatically. “Exactly,” he says. “Munchkin gets it,  _ Danke _ .”

Seeing Five scowl like that never gets old. It’s the same scowl he’d had when they were kids, whenever Klaus asked a particularly stupid question or Luther did his best Dad impression. It’s a bit sharper now, harder, but it’s kind of nice to recognize it, to see it again after almost twenty years without it.

“Don’t call me that,” Five says darkly. “I can kill you in nine different ways right now without even leaving my seat.”

Klaus practically purrs. “Ooh, I love it when you talk murder to me.”

Before Five can follow through on one of those nine ways, which he looks sorely tempted to do based on the look on his face, Ben snorts, successfully drawing their attention. 

(Five  _ probably  _ wouldn’t kill him. He went through a lot of trouble to prevent that end result, after all. It would be a shame to throw away all that hard work.)

“You act all tough guy, Five, but we know that deep down you’re just a big softie,” Ben observes, cool and calm in the face of an infuriated assassin in the way only a dead man can be. “Why, just earlier today I saw you thoughtfully painting Delores’ nails. Beautiful shade of pink, by the way, please tell me your toenails match.”

Usually, Klaus would be all over that. Perfect opening, right there. Besides, Klaus would love having another brother to paint nails with, since Ben is more likely to dump the nail polish on Klaus’s head than play along, and Diego is always unpredictable, just as likely to stab him for suggesting it than join in. 

But, unfortunately, as Five hisses in outrage and Diego perks up with perverse glee, Klaus feels the horribly familiar tingling down his spine that heralds the arrival of another ghostie. He doesn’t always notice it, but today the kitchen is relatively peaceful, and he’s always a bit more on edge after training his powers, like an exposed nerve.

He knows before he turns that it’s the last person he wants to see.

Reginald is standing tall behind Allison, a few inches away from Klaus’s shoulder, which means he has to crane his neck uncomfortably to see him, but also means that Ben hasn’t spotted him yet, distracted by teasing Five. Klaus really, really hopes it stays that way because the last thing any of them need is Reginald Hargreeves fucking with them. It’s too late to stop Klaus’s mindfuck, because he is absolutely going to have nightmares tonight, but with any luck, he can prevent the others from the same fate.

Klaus glares at Reginald hotly, tight-lipped, and tries to recreate the tingly weed feeling from earlier. He’s never successfully banished a ghost before, but getting rid of his father is a fantastic motivator, and even seeing dignified Reginald Hargreeves get nauseous might be worthwhile.

Reginald, rather than spewing his guts, just meets Klaus’s eyes with a measured gaze and decidedly unhappy twist of his lips.

“This behaviour is entirely childish and unfitting of the Umbrella Academy,” he says, voice dark and heavy, a call back to their childhoods of lectures and punishments. “I expected more of you all in my absence.”

“Holy shit,” Ben says, and Klaus spins around to see his brother staring at their father with wide eyes. Klaus barely notices as the familiar blue outlining Ben flickers and disappears, too focused on the horrified look taking over his brother’s face to acknowledge his sudden drop out of visibility and the subsequently confused noises of their siblings.

“Shit,” Klaus says, because this is very Not Good. “Shit, shit, no, hang on - ”

“Dad?” Ben says, a horrible mix of lost and incredulous. 

Reginald barely spares him a look. 

“I see I’ve returned just in time,” he says loftily, casting a disapproving eye over the table, then eyeing Vanya and Five appreciatively. “If this is what’s to become of you children without me. Now that I’m here, we can work on getting you all back into shape to reach your full potential, this time with the full Academy.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> poor ben


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes hello i'm back. i was busy moving and then starting classes again, but i already had this chapter written and forgot to post

“What the fuck,” Ben says for probably the fifth or sixth time, which is entirely his prerogative and not really something Klaus can blame him for, but still wishes he would stop doing. “What the _fuck._ ”

Klaus has a headache. He pretty much always has a headache these days, but this particular brand of headache is more stressful-dead-father-and-freaked-out-dead-brother related than the normal too-many-goddamn-ghosts, and he’s finding that that makes all the difference. 

“Hey, Klaus?” Ben says, still more than a little hysterical. “What the fuck?”

He debates letting his brother keep going until he runs out of steam, but based on what he’s heard from countless other ghosts over the years, it’s entirely possible that ghosts don’t ever run out of steam. It really would be just their luck for Ben to finally get stuck in a ghostly repetitive loop after thirteen years of inexplicably _not_ doing that, all because their asshole father decided to stick his nose back in where it doesn’t belong. 

God, sometimes Klaus really hates his life.

“Ben. Benny. Benerino,” he says. “I hear you. Margaret hears you. Let’s maybe take it down a notch before every other ghostie hears you, hm?”

Ben seems to consider this for a moment, eyeing a silent Margaret, then turns back to Klaus. “Okay,” he says. “Okay, but what the fuck?”

Klaus shrugs. “Daddy’s home,” he says glumly, because he’s really quite freaked out and it’s taking a lot of effort not to show it. They don’t need both of them reduced to gibbering wrecks, after all. They can take it in turns. 

He really hopes it will be his turn soon.

By some miracle, Ben doesn’t repeat his new favourite phrase, though it looks like he wants to. “How long has he been here?” he asks instead, and Klaus isn’t quite sure that’s an improvement because, yep, that’s suspicious judgment in his voice. Ah, just like the good old days.

Klaus doesn’t want to answer. He doesn’t want to be in this situation at all, but, well, beggars can’t be choosers and nothing in his life has ever been easy, so why should it be now? 

“I saw him this morning,” he says miserably. “Hoped maybe I was imagining it.”

The look Ben gives him is entirely deserved, if unwelcome. But, honestly, it wouldn’t be the first time Klaus has hallucinated things, though it has been rarer since he stopped starting his days with colourful pills and white powder. At least back then the hallucinations were predictable and finite: however much he didn’t like what he saw, he always knew it would be over just as soon as his body burned its way through the drugs. Simpler times. Since apocalypse week, though, he’s found reality a bit harder to pin down. Ben calls it PTSD, but Ben is an annoying know-it-all who thinks being dead grants him wisdom beyond his years, so Klaus tends not to listen to him.

Hallucinating Reginald would be a first, but not entirely outside the realm of possibility. Alas, his problems can never be that simple.

“What are we going to do?” Ben asks. “Can you make him leave?”

The idea is so absurd it makes Klaus laugh. “Oh, sure,” he says. “I’ll just go up to dear Papa and politely ask him to return to his stupid barbershop. Thanks for the visit, terrible to see you, let’s do this again never. Au revoir!”

“Barbershop?” Ben repeats, which is entirely the wrong thing to focus on. 

Klaus flaps his hand dismissively, making sure to use _Hello_ just in case he gives his brother the ghostly equivalent of a bad tuna melt. “The point, my dear dead dumbass, is that I can’t do anything except give him gas, and even that might not work. I’m not convinced that man is human enough for such mundane weaknesses, and it may just make him ever so slightly pissed.” The thought makes him shudder, because Reginald Hargreeves is dreadful company on good days, let alone when he has a bee in his bonnet, and the last thing Klaus needs is his irate father deciding to haunt him for the rest of eternity.

Klaus may never relax again, which would be truly tragic for his clear skin and sunny disposition.

At least he’ll have Ben to suffer alongside him. It’s not that Klaus wants his brother to have to endure Reginald’s presence, but he has to admit that it’s a relief not to be alone. He does make a note to himself to keep an eye on it, though, because as much as he bitches and moans, he does care about Ben, and no one deserves to be subjected to Hargreeves like this. Ben died for the man, for god’s sake; shouldn’t that count for something?

(Klaus is never telling Ben any of this. By gods, think of his ego.)

“Well,” Ben says speculatively. “He didn’t follow us up here. Maybe he won’t stick around.”

Klaus winces. “Ah, that could just be because he has more interesting specimens to study downstairs.”

Said specimens are probably none too happy with Klaus right now, but that’s hardly new. If he was feeling particularly charitable, he might give them a pass for their frustration, since from their point of view he just freaked out, dropped the connection to Ben, and then high-tailed it out of the kitchen without offering so much as an apology. Pretty incriminating, he has to admit. But he doesn’t feel very charitable right now, so they can suck it.

Ben wrinkles his nose, conceding to Klaus’s point, which he hates doing on principle. 

“How are we going to tell them? Luther’s only just starting to work through all his bullshit daddy issues, and Vanya still makes the forks shake when she doesn’t play as the top hat in Monopoly,” Ben says, finally joining Klaus on the bed and giving up on his uneasy pacing. 

“Why does she want to be the hat so bad?” Klaus wonders. “The shot glass is clearly superior.”

“What? No, hang on. It’s a thimble, you idiot. Why would there be a shot glass in Monopoly?”

“I don’t know, why is there an iron?”

“Shut up. I can’t do this with you.” Ben raises his hand between them and uses the other to pinch the bridge of his nose. “What are we going to do about Dad, Klaus?”

Groaning, Klaus flops backwards onto his pillows. “Hearing a lot of questions and not a lot of solutions,” he says a little waspishly, nerves frayed. “Maybe if we ignore him he’ll go away. Like a needy boyfriend.”

Ben looks like he sorely wants to throttle him, but politely refrains. That’s quite nice of him, considering Klaus is about 72% sure that would end in some kind of panic attack, and he really doesn’t have the energy for that today. 

“And if he doesn’t?” Ben asks instead, dangerously patient.

“Well, I hear Canada is lovely this time of year,” Klaus offers, only half-joking. There’s no guarantee Reginald wouldn’t follow him halfway around the planet if he had to, if only because Klaus is the only one able to hear his many complaints. Joy.

Ben doesn’t look pleased by this answer, but he’s rarely pleased by anything Klaus says, so he doesn’t take it personally. On the bright side, Ben doesn’t make a move towards leaving, looking content to sit and stew beside him for now, so that’s nice. As much as Klaus would give his right arm for some peace and quiet for once in his life, knowing Ben is around in the event of unwanted visitors does help keep the ever-mounting anxiety at bay. 

Maybe he’ll even be able to catch a few hours’ sleep before the night crew clocks in. He hasn’t slept properly in a few days, and he’s starting to get that familiar strung out feeling that usually ends in some kind of spectacular snap that Ben and Diego hate so much. If Dad sticks around for a while, god forbid, Klaus doubts he’ll get many peaceful nights from this point forward, so he might as well try to get what he can. Ben will act as lookout for once and keep the nasties away, as long as Klaus bats his eyes just right.

At least Margaret and the cowboy are gone. The German dude is back in full force, but he seems to remember Klaus’s new glamorous nausea powers, so he’s behaving for now. Even if he starts up again, Klaus has slept through worse than some garbled mumbling. It’s the screamers he wants to keep away as long as possible.

Well, and asshole billionaires. Nightmares, too, though those are harder. 

Ugh. When did sleeping become such a chore?

(When he stopped using needles to help him along. When he came back from Vietnam with blood on his hands. When he saw his sister furious, rage blinding and destructive.)

(Shut up, brain.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> future chapters won't be as repetitive, and the others should come into play more. then the fun can begin :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't successfully written much lately so I'm just posting the chapters I already have done... my other fics are up next though, I swear

Klaus is dead.

He has to be. It doesn’t quite feel the same as last time, but he also doesn’t remember cracking his head open on a sticky dance floor recently, so maybe it’s a variable experience. Keep things fresh and interesting and all that. Thank goodness, because Klaus and monotony are not the closest of pals, and he doesn’t think he can survive an afterlife of permanent apathy. 

Well, ‘survive’ is a bit strong.

What is the correct terminology for the dead? He should ask Ben. Wait, no, he’s dead now, which means he gets to make the rules. Ha, take that! 

Anyway, being dead isn’t so bad. It’s quiet, at least, which kind of makes up for the actual dying part, not that Klaus remembers it. Maybe Ben smothered him in his sleep. Or Five followed through on his psychotic tendencies. Or, hell, maybe Klaus’s body just threw up its hands in surrender and let him go like it’s been threatening to do for years. He decides it doesn’t matter how it happened, anyway, because he’s pleasantly distracted.

Dave feels familiar beside him. 

Something tells Klaus this is more noteworthy than it feels, but he pushes that away because he’s warm and comfortable and doesn’t plan on moving for anything less than the Apocalypse: Take Two. Maybe not even then. Dave is playing with his hair and he’s shirtless under Klaus’s hands and, yeah, nothing is going to make him budge. He’s missed this.

He’s never actually been able to spend time with Dave in relative silence, and he’s finding it a novel experience. In Vietnam, any stolen moment between them, while lovely and hot and amazing, was always accompanied by at least a handful of ghosts, often angry and bloody and so, so confused. Klaus had barely been able to hear himself think, let alone bask in the minutiae of Dave’s existence.

Klaus can hear him breathing, regular and a little raspy, even breaths that soothe the edges of something jagged in Klaus’s chest. Dave’s heart is working under Klaus’s hand, just as it should be, and all's right with the world.

If the little girl tries to kick him out again, they will be having words. 

Klaus traces patterns onto the bare skin of Dave’s abdomen because the man is delightfully ticklish and Klaus is a sadist at heart. He starts with a heart because he’s a secret sap and because Dave loves that lovey-dovey crap. Then, for good measure, he follows it up with a carefully detailed dick. He expects some outcry at that, or a laugh, but Dave stays still and quiet beside him, which really is strange. Dave is a mouthy fucker when he wants to be, and he always wants to be around Klaus. Never gives him a moment’s peace, that one.

Curious and concerned, Klaus flattens his hand onto Dave’s chest and sticks his nose into his neck, since it’s usually a sure-fire way to make the man crack. It’s cute how Dave still thinks he can hold out against Klaus’s machinations, but Klaus lovingly mapped out all of Dave’s soft spots ages ago and he’s never hesitated to use them to his advantage.

Klaus’s palm feels warm and heavy, and something slips out from between his fingers. He pulls back, frowning, to look, and suddenly the room drops away around him, vision tunnelling, because his hand is red. Blood sluggishly creeps out from under his hand, streaking down Dave’s skin, and there’s a steel band around Klaus’s own chest that keeps tightening the more blood bubbles up, squeezing all the air out of him. 

He can’t help the high whine that slips out, desperate and wobbly, and suddenly nothing about this place is calm or peaceful. They’re in the middle of a warzone and there’s blood everywhere, covering his hands, staining his arms as he scrabbles at Dave. His fingers slide in the blood, but he can’t find the injury, can’t see where it’s coming from, can’t stop it. Dave is still and quiet.

There’s no injury, no cause for the blood that keeps coming, even though Klaus remembers gunfire and gaping wounds. For the first time, he looks up, desperate to see Dave’s face, Dave’s eyes, to make sure he’s still there. But there’s more blood the more he looks, tracking up, up, up, and it’s spilling from his neck, a tidal wave, and it’s not stopping because there’s a sickening cut slashed across Allison’s throat and she’s  _ dying _ \- 

He shoves his hands over the cut, trying to stem the bleeding, and he can feel her heartbeat fluttering at the tips of his fingers. Her mouth opens and closes uselessly, but she can’t speak, of course she can’t speak, and she looks so scared, eyes wet and bright and painfully white, searing into him, burning all over, a supernova, and he can feel her fury, her anger, and he knows with a detached certainty that Vanya is going to tear everything apart piece by piece - 

Vanya’s face overlaps Allison’s overlaps Dave’s, the three of them as one, dying under his hand, and he can’t save them, he can never save them. They open their mouth, blurry, distorted, separate but not, eyes locked onto his, and he hears their voice, sister and sister and lover.

“Number Four,” they say, but it’s not them. The collection of their voices sounds like Reginald, and Klaus has never wanted to hear those words, that tone, come out of their mouths, especially not Dave’s. Dave, who never called him Four, who never spoke to him with the same derision as everyone else. Dave, who’s dead, dead, dead.

Klaus is falling, falling, fallen. 

Ben isn’t in the room when he wakes up.

That’s probably why there’re so many ghosts. Ben usually does a good job of keeping them away when Klaus needs a few hours of rest, as long as Ben is in the mood to be helpful, but sometimes he wanders off and the ghosts take advantage of his absence. Eventually, their presence always wakes Klaus, no matter how little he’s slept or how tired he is, and it’s never a pleasant way to start things. 

Margaret’s back at the window, and German dude, and about half a dozen others that Klaus has seen hanging around Five and Diego in the past. He thinks one of them might be one of the few ghosts from Vanya’s own entourage, and seeing her makes his stomach lurch, remembering blinding white and hot red.

Reginald has carved out his own space at the foot of Klaus’s bed, watching him shrewdly through that stupid monocle. None of the other ghosts dare intrude on his personal bubble, which goes to show that ghosts do understand personal boundaries, they just don’t give a fuck about Klaus’s.

Klaus hasn’t cried in front of his father since he was nine, at least not while outside of that heavenly barbershop or purgatory or whatever the fuck that place was, and he feels minuscule and weak to be doing so now. But he can’t stop the tears that spill onto his cheeks, and he doesn’t try very hard anyway, because it’s not like anything matters. Klaus lost his claim to dignity a long, long time ago, and there’s little point in trying to look strong in front of his father now.

The one bright side in all this is that Reginald can’t successfully give him any kind of lecture, because the screaming is too loud to hear him. It makes Klaus’s ears ring, but he’s used to it and he barely flinches anymore. He does take delight in the tenseness of Reginald’s shoulders, though, because the man may be a ghost but he clearly has no idea how to exist among them. It’s a small win, but he’ll take it; Dad can’t handle the one thing Klaus had been largely desensitized to by the time he was five. Who’s weak now?

(Still Klaus.)

Klaus stumbles out of his bed because he may not feel fit to face the world but he’s certainly not going to stay lying in front of his father like a dissected lab rat, and the horror chorus is enough to motivate him to at least try and find other lodgings. He feels gross and sweaty and sick, and he knows there isn’t actually any blood on his hands or clothes but he can still feel it, still see the faint outline everywhere he looks. But he can’t change his clothes, even though Ben will surely comment on it, because his brain is like mush and Reginald is still fucking staring.

The few steps from his bed to the door feel insurmountable. The room spins around him and his balance is so bad he might as well be rolling on molly - god, if only - but somehow he makes it. 

He yanks open the door to find Diego on the other side, fist raised to knock. They stare at each other for a moment before Diego takes a step back.

“You look like shit, man,” he says.

“Thanks,” Klaus says, and his voice cracks about a dozen times. He can’t stop thinking about molly.

“You sure you’re alright? Something I should know?”

Klaus blinks a few times, both to force himself to focus on his brother and to recover from the shrill moan one of the ghosts just gave directly behind him. “What?” he asks, because the world is buzzing and Diego is really talking way too softly. Luckily, a childhood of stuttering has taught Diego to enunciate more than their typical sibling, which makes it slightly easier to read his lips. It would be even easier if Klaus was any good at lip-reading, but he makes do.

Diego frowns severely, shifting his weight and crossing his arms. Oh, God, that’s his lecture power stance. 

“What’s going on with you?” he asks, and Klaus hears him, barely. Two ghosts are peeking over his shoulders, and they look new. Diego must have been out misbehaving last night. “ _ Klaus. _ ”

“You still disrespect those in stations above you, I see,” Reginald slots in, and Klaus really doesn’t need his two-cents right now, thanks. “Number Two asked you a question, Number Four. He is still your superior, even if his discipline is almost as abysmal as yours.”

Klaus growls. “I’m fine,” he grinds out, and he knows Diego probably thinks the anger is directed at him, but he doesn’t have the capacity to be diplomatic right now. It would be so much easier to plaster on a convincing smile if he just had a little acid to smooth the way. Not a lot, of course, just enough to make it all fade away. 

_ Dave,  _ he thinks.  _ I have to be sober to summon Dave. _

But Dave’s gone. His dog tags are all that’s left, hanging around Klaus’s neck, the imprint of his blood still stained into the grooves of his fingers. He’s been trying to summon Dave for weeks, and he hasn’t had any luck. Maybe Dave doesn’t want to be found.

Besides, Dave wouldn’t want him to suffer, right? He would understand. Just a bit of weed, one joint, just to make things soft and gentle. Even Dave used to smoke a bit, he’d understand.

Fuck, Ben is so much better at making a convincing argument to stay clean.

Diego’s mouth is moving, but Klaus can only stare helplessly. How does anyone expect him to be able to do anything with all this goddamn noise?

“I am curious,” Reginald says, and for some fucking reason Klaus can make out his voice just fine. “Do you truly believe in this family nonsense? I allowed Grace and Pogo to encourage that childish notion when you were actual children because I believed it would help build trust and cohesion within the Academy, but surely you’ve outgrown it by now.”

Klaus shakes his head sharply. “What?” he asks, and he isn’t sure if he means it towards Diego or Reginald. His head hurts.

Diego suddenly reaches out and grasps his shoulder, shaking him a little roughly, and it does help him focus on the living. Still, ow. Rude.

“Get your shit together, bro,” Diego demands, and he actually looks a little concerned, the big softie. Of course, his tender masculinity dictates he must immediately counter this with an appropriately manly custom. He smacks the back of Klaus’s head. “You better not ruin this sobriety thing you got going on. I kinda like having my obnoxious little brother back.”

“Technically, I’m older than you,” Klaus says. There’s still an itch under his skin and a feral studio audience behind him, but he feels a little less like a shadow stretched between the living world and the dead, so he supposes that’s good enough. Normal, at any rate. 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Forgive me if I don’t come to you for worldly advice,” Diego snarks, and the world slowly starts sliding back to its usual axis. 

“Your shared delusion is extraordinary,” Reginald notes, but Klaus has had precisely enough out of the cheap seats for now.

He tries to subtly shove his hand -  _ goodbye  _ \- out behind him without Diego noticing, and hisses under his breath. Diego seems oblivious, clapping a hand on the back of Klaus’s neck and beginning to steer them down the hall.

Klaus’s fingers tingle slightly, faintly, and he sucks in a startled breath. He risks a look over his shoulder, hardly daring to hope. 

The two ghosts that had followed Diego up are quiet, confused, and transparent. Reginald stands next to them, insufferably implacable and entirely whole.

Klaus’s heart drops. Diego keeps them moving. Reginald watches.


	6. Chapter 6

It’s a bad day. Night. Early morning. Whatever.

Diego’s personal cheerleaders are near deafening, egged on by the incessant bitching and whining of Five’s victims, and they seem to be planning some kind of rager because more of them keep showing up. Maybe it’s some kind of ghostly tradition, or maybe the little girl in the sky is punishing him for daring to exist, but whatever the reason, Klaus is in hell.

He wishes it were socially acceptable to tell his brothers to fuck off. With any luck, they’d take their fan clubs with them and give him some breathing room. But Diego has that stubborn look on his face that doesn’t usually bode well for Klaus’s tantrums, and Five is being suspiciously tolerant of their presence, which sends off all kinds of alarm bells that Klaus is too tired to really look into. In any case, he would feel bad squandering this rare moment of sibling coexistence, even if it would help his headache. It’s fine, though. He can deal with it for a few minutes.

Realistically, they have twenty minutes, tops, before Diego attempts to stab someone or Five peaces the fuck out. Klaus can make it until then.

It would be infinitely easier if their dead father wasn’t creepily watching them from the corner of the kitchen, but Klaus is coming to terms with the fact that the universe clearly hates his guts, and he might as well get with the program. 

Mind drifting, he’s startled by the plate that materializes in front of him. He blinks at it dumbly before thinking to look for the culprit.

“You didn’t finish dinner,” Diego says, and the words are mild but the tone is threatening. An intervention, maybe. Klaus hasn’t actually had one since he was twenty-one and bouncing between couches, so he’s a little rusty.

“Care to explain?” Five asks, and he almost manages to look entirely nonchalant, except for the fact he’s on his third cup of coffee and willingly engaging with two of his brothers at two in the morning. Suspicious behaviour. 

Klaus is tired.

“Not really,” he sighs, and stares morosely at his hastily heated chicken breast. The steam from the microwave is not promising. It probably tastes fine, and he’s eaten far, far worse, but despite the anticipatory rumble in his stomach, he can’t imagine actually putting any of it in his mouth. His appetite has always been finicky, and half his brain is still struggling through the last dredges of his nightmare. He feels shaky and ill, completely unsuited to enjoying Mom’s leftovers.

Five huffs impatiently, which is the first warning sign. There are four warnings in total, and Klaus isn’t entirely sure what follows, but it probably isn’t pleasant. When they’d been kids, it usually ended in black eyes and missing possessions, but something tells him Five’s antics are a bit more severe now.

“You’ve been acting strangely for weeks,” Five continues, and honestly it’s kind of amazing that he’s willing to expound further. He usually isn’t one to waste words. “Initially, I assumed it was just  _ you _ , but after speaking with our siblings and seeing your display at dinner tonight, I’ve reassessed. So, I’ll ask again. Would you care to explain?”

Hm, dead-eyed smile. Second warning sign.

“ _ Klaus, _ ” says Road Rash Randy from behind Five’s shoulder. He’s immediately echoed by three others.

Now, generally, Klaus can ignore a little name-dropping. It isn’t fun, and sometimes it really pisses him off because hey, that’s his name, don’t fucking wear it out, but overall it’s pretty tame. He could even say he prefers it over being called ‘Four’, but only because ‘Klaus’ hasn’t entirely lost the novel shine to it just yet. However, this time he can’t help but tense immediately because, well. This isn’t just the usual crowd.

“If you had learned to control your powers as a child, you wouldn’t be subject to their presence now,” Daddy Dearest says dispassionately. 

Klaus pointedly continues glaring at his plate rather than acknowledging any of the ghostly concert. It makes him feel a little like a moody kid again, but it’s better than the alternatives.

The  _ fwip  _ of Five’s teleporting almost scares him out of his seat. He saves himself, if not his dignity, only to have his personal bubble rudely invaded, this time by one of the living for a change. Five looks grumpy.

Sudden teleporting, either away from or closer to the object of his ire? Third warning sign. 

Klaus really does not have the mental capacity for this.

“Are you even listening to me, asshole?” Five asks testily. “Are you high?”

“Hey,” Diego protests, which is both heart-warming and vaguely irritating because Diego doesn’t really have the moral high ground here. Klaus is pretty sure he’s been about an inch away from accusing him of the same thing for ages. 

“I fucking  _ wish, _ ” he says, because it’s true. “Do you know what I would do for some cocaine right now? You’d probably have to avert your virgin eyes. Are you a virgin? Does Delores count?”

Klaus really wishes Ben were here, because he’d probably be more likely to actually explore this question with him. As it is, he’s stuck with two brothers who don’t appreciate his genius.

It’s Diego that grunts unhappily at him. “Not funny,” he says, and he’s probably not referring to their older-younger brother’s sex life. Which, fair. It’s not really something Klaus wants to think about too long anyway.

Randy is still vying for his attention, a steady stream of  _ klausklausklaus  _ that is incredibly distracting, and Klaus is just waiting for another spectator score from their father. His attention is, as always, divided, and just once he would like his brothers to get a clue.

He sighs heavily, theatrically, and throws himself back in his chair. “I’m not high,” he says patiently, because there is a time and a place for riling up his most murderous siblings and two in the morning in the Hargreeves’ kitchen probably isn’t it. Now, if they were out on the streets in Klaus’s domain, different story. Alas, he has to act at least semi-civilized nowadays, though thankfully politeness has never entered into this house. 

“Then why did Ben disappear at dinner?” Diego asks, and it suddenly makes more sense. 

Ben has been a touchy topic between them all since the day he died, and now that he’s back, in a manner of speaking, the others have been both cautious and ecstatic. Of course they’re peeved that Klaus’s perceived failings and incompetence cost them some oh-so-important dead brother bonding time. Still, they would have  _ noticed  _ if Klaus popped some pills with the potatoes. 

“I was distracted,” Klaus says delicately. “Put off my game. Took unawares. Caught with my panties - ”

“By what?” Five interrupts impatiently. What, did no one in the apocalypse teach the boy manners?

Here, Klaus hesitates.

He can see Reginald out of the corner of his eye, though he’s working very hard not to give the man an inch. He hasn’t deigned to grace them with more of his wisdom just yet, but the assessing look on his face is not promising, and it’s probably just a matter of time. Klaus has a few options here, but none of them are good ones.

Unfortunately, he’s tested Diego and Five’s patience too much and silence is no longer an acceptable answer. Fuck.

“I - ghosts,” he finally says, rushed. “There were ghosts, okay?”

As usual when ghosts come up, his brothers are patently underwhelmed. Five pulls back, out of Klaus’s face, disinterested, and Diego frowns in that familiar I-don’t-understand-and-think-you’re-stupid way. 

“What do you mean, ghosts? Like, other than Ben?” Diego asks.

Klaus opens his mouth, maybe to explain that ghosts aren’t anything new but the spirit of their asshole father back to ruin their lives again does tend to put a bit of a damper on the evening, but Five beats him to it.

“Why does it matter?” he asks, pissy. “Clearly Klaus still hasn’t been taking his powers seriously. If you actually tried to train them, you wouldn’t be startled by every grandma you see.”

Five has always been a bit of a dick. Mostly, Klaus can’t even hold it against him, since they’re literally all assholes and kindness is a foreign concept. Forty years as the only man left alive in the entire world really only adds to that lack of compassion, even if Klaus pictures the silence as a sort of heavenly retreat, and also the little psycho is still coming down from averting the apocalypse and achieving his lifetime goal. His life’s probably feeling a little aimless nowadays.

But Klaus isn’t exactly up to form right now, so he’s struggling to brush it off as he usually would. He’s grieving Dave, sober as a pre-teen, and fielding Reginald’s bullshit. Five’s words echo a little too closely to Reginald’s, and maybe it’s the sleep-deprivation but he’s feeling a little cornered, a little panicked.

Klaus can feel his pulse in his eyeballs.

“Exsqueeze me,” he manages with an impressively even voice. “I have been practicing, thank you. You can ask Ben!”

“Really?” Five says, raising an eyebrow. “Make him visible, then.”

Klaus blinks, mouth opening and closing. Well, fuck. 

“He’s - He can’t come to the phone right now. He’s probably watching Luther sleep like a stalker or something,” he says, helpless. It’s a losing battle and he knows it. Of all the times for Ben to go MIA.

Diego’s disappointed look isn’t unfamiliar, but it cuts deep.

“Look, bro, it’s okay,” Diego sighs, and Klaus can’t even appreciate the understanding tone. “This is all new, yeah? We don’t expect you to master it overnight. But we all need to train, and it could help. How about you join me tomorrow?”

“I  _ do  _ train,” Klaus protests, because, god, he can’t even count how many hours he’s spent trying desperately to summon Dave, or even to get the others to shut up. He’s gone without sleep night after night, worked for hours until Ben made him stop for a break. It’s the hardest he’s ever worked in his life, and of course no one believes him.

Klaus is giving it his all already, and he doesn’t think there’s anything left to give. But he can’t say that, and they won’t listen anyway, so he just closes his eyes and nods, ignoring Reginald’s approving noise beside him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Five is a jerk, but I promise he has his reasons, Klaus just doesn't know them :(
> 
> Also, the next chapter is probably one of the ones I've enjoyed writing the most, so I hope to get that up soon!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is basically me realizing i have more dave/klaus feelings than previously thought

Everything in Klaus wants to try summoning Dave.

It’s been like that for months, ever since he made Ben visible in that theatre, a deep-rooted desire to find Dave and never let him go. It stays with him all day every day, a constant pull on his thoughts, occupying some corner of his brain at any given time. It’s why he pushes himself to train all the time, even though it reminds him of unpleasant things and childhood fears, even though he’s spent decades carefully cultivating a many-faceted  _ fuck no  _ response to any and all things to do with his powers. Dave is the exception, has always been the exception.

The desire to see Dave overshadows almost everything else. Klaus would happily go back to the streets, personally visit every ex-fling and dealer with a sunny smile and bared throat if Little Girl Above told him that’s what it would take to have his soldier back. Don’t tell Five, but a dark gremlin in Klaus’s brain sometimes whispers that he might just be willing to risk the apocalypse for a certain curly-haired farm-hand from Wisconsin. 

The only other thing Klaus has ever wanted this much, like a physical burning under his skin, is the drugs. And he gave them up for one man and one man only. 

If not for Ben, Klaus would probably spend every waking moment looking for Dave.

He doesn’t want to say he’s discouraged. Admitting that feels like admitting defeat, like as soon as he acknowledges it out loud it means Dave’s really gone, lost to time and death and little girls who hate Klaus almost as much as he hates himself. So he doesn’t say it, not when his joints grow stiff and migraines bloom behind his eyes, not when he squeezes the dog tags so hard Dave’s name imprints into his palm just to get through the night, not when Ben looks at him soft and sad and not at all like the resentful bastard he should be. Klaus doesn’t say it and he doesn’t let Ben say it and he never, ever tells their siblings about any of it.

Most importantly, Klaus never stops trying.

With his nightmare clouding his brain, taking up space and settling in for the long haul, with the memory of Dave’s hand in his own, soft and warm and bloody, Klaus wants to summon Dave more than he wants to breathe. 

But he can’t. Because his siblings are with him, speaking and laughing and teasing, completely unaware of the man Dave had been and the mark he left on their brother, and Klaus is a discarded experiment once more under scrutiny, flayed open and hardly human.

Trying to summon Dave now feels like a disservice to his memory. Because Klaus wants him, wants him desperately, but right now he wants the comfort Dave provides more than he wants the man himself, and that isn’t right. When he sees Dave again - and he will see him again - it will be when he’s whole and real and able to touch his lover without shattering. 

And it won’t be with Reginald  _ fucking  _ Hargreeves breathing down their necks.

So for the family training session Klaus has been roped into, he works on banishing with a fervour completely alien to him. He’s pretty sure it unnerves his siblings just as much as it unnerves him, but they hardly matter right now. He’s doing this for them too, damn it, even if they’ll never know.

They haven’t all trained together since they were thirteen, and never with Vanya. It’s loud and boisterous and nostalgic like they’re scrawny adolescents in comic books again. Complete with their father’s observation, even, though Klaus is determined to keep that little tidbit to himself. It would do no good to give his siblings performance issues now. 

He’s doing his best to ignore them, both because he really is trying to train (like he’s Five at nine-years-old, god) and because he’s just the slightest bit bitter. Well, maybe more than slightly. He’s still burning a bit over the fact that Diego and Five basically manhandled him into joining this little family session and the fact that none of them have noticed that he’s actually  _ trying  _ here. They know he’s clean, kind of, but only Diego knows why, and even he only has the barest of info, and they all doubt it at least once a day. But it’s not like Klaus has been going out of his way to hide it. They even mentioned that he’s been odd lately, yet they choose to believe it’s because he’s relapsed and throwing everything away again.

Klaus doesn’t usually do resentment. It’s bad for his complexion and he doesn’t want wrinkles. But he’s feeling a little pissy and Ben isn’t here to take up the bitchy mantle instead, so Klaus has to pick up the slack. 

Besides, his siblings are just inconsiderate. Can’t they take their ghosts elsewhere for once? Check them at the door? Find a spirit-sitter for just one morning? Luther and Five want them to train, but it’s like they’re trying to set Klaus up for failure with all these distractions. Unbelievable.

“Banishment should be just as easy as summoning,” Reginald says imperiously.

For a second, Klaus seriously considers making his stupid father corporeal just to sock him across his stupid face. Teenage Four would have pissed himself laughing, and it might relieve some of the tension Klaus has been carrying in his shoulders. He misses Mikhail. Now that was a man with magic hands, able to loosen the tightest of knots. He also carried the best MDMA, but right now Klaus would be happy with just the massage. Well. Relatively speaking.

“Your powers are a gateway, Number Four, a door between the land of the living and the dead. If you can bring the dead through one way, you can push them out another.”

Klaus doesn’t appreciate these helpful little hints. It’s the kind of shit he imagines dear old Dad probably scribbled in that dumb notebook, bite-sized philosophies that sound smart but don’t actually mean anything. Dad probably patted himself on the back for that one while baby Number Four screamed himself hoarse in the mausoleum. Besides, Reginald has to know full well that Klaus is aiming all of his banishment efforts at  _ him _ , and the fact that he’s so willing to “help” suggests that he feels no threat at all.

Bastard.

Unfortunately, Reginald seems to be right in this regard. As much as it pains Klaus to admit, he hasn’t been able to give his father so much as a funny turn, even though he’s had permanent weed-tingly-fingers for, like, half an hour now. They’re feeling a bit numb, actually. Like inflated condoms.

He can’t even feel pleased about the half a dozen transparent ghosts peering around in confusion. It looks like he managed to take away their voices, too, which is a trick he’d be outright ecstatic about if it wasn’t for Debbie Downer shadowing him. He thinks maybe he fully banished one ghost, because he vaguely remembers seeing a miserable teenager scowling at Allison amongst the throng who is no longer around, but maybe they just wandered off while Klaus was dealing with his insurmountable daddy issues. Come to think of it, maybe there’d never been a moody teen at all.

Ugh. He misses Ben. He doesn’t know where that fucker is but he better show his face soon. Klaus’s sanity demands it. 

(He better not be hiding from Reginald. It’s not like Klaus would blame him, but he would be kind of pissed. What happened to having each others’ backs, huh? Geez, you spitefully shoot up in front of a guy a few times and suddenly no one’s heard of loyalty. Coward.)

Klaus is tired. He hasn’t slept peacefully in weeks, months, the memory of withdrawals still sometimes sucker punches him at intervals, and his brain feels like putty, kneaded and wrung out from nonstop summoning and banishing and giving ghosts indigestion. He hasn’t felt quite this strained, power-wise, since he was eleven and still trying to follow Reginald’s grand plan. 

Also, he has a headache.

His siblings have left him in a secluded corner of the courtyard while they train their own powers, and he’s a little annoyed that they think the place they held funerals for both their brother and father is an appropriate place to force him to open casting calls for the dead. It isn’t stone walls and cobwebs, but it’s close. 

It does give them a handy little arena with plenty of targets for Diego and open space for Vanya, he supposes, but still. It’s the principle of the thing.

Shaking out his hands, trying to get proper warmth and feeling to return, Klaus squints at the others. They’re several feet away, swept up in the living world, and Klaus briefly wonders if this resentment is what made Vanya go nuclear.

To be fair, she looks happy enough now. Five has her set up with her violin (and who agreed to that? Klaus certainly hadn’t been consulted. But sure, give the bomb the detonator too, that’s fine, what does he know?) and she’s playing softly, a wrinkle in her brow. Klaus can’t really hear her but he trusts it’s something beautiful.

“Seven’s powers are untrained,” Reginald says, drifting closer. Klaus tilts his head back in defeat. “She has no control, no ability to temper her emotions. Left unchecked, she is a danger to the world.”

“And whose fault is that?” Klaus grumbles, but of course, he’s less than the dirt on Reggie’s ghostly boot, so he goes unheard, unacknowledged.

“Number Seven is far more dangerous than you can imagine,” Reginald says.

Klaus is tired. He doesn’t argue.

Across the courtyard, Vanya’s hand slips and the bow jars against the strings. The ensuing screech is accompanied by a change in air pressure that makes his ears ache and shatters several windows. Reginald looks gravely smug.

Klaus closes his eyes and thinks of Dave.


	8. Chapter 8

Vanya’s timeout corner is, coincidentally, right at Klaus’s side and not a corner at all.

She and Allison probably think they’re sneaky, or that Klaus is entirely oblivious, or both, because it’s almost entirely casual how they find their way over to the spot he’s staked out for himself. He debates calling them out on it but decides against it, partly because teasing Vanya too far is like kicking an emotionally-repressed puppy and partly because Allison is not a woman to be trifled with. 

Mostly because the two of them have the least ghosts, comparatively speaking, and he’s dying for a distraction.

Klaus expects more commentary from Dad as his sisters approach, perhaps about Vanya’s risk level or Allison’s wasted potential, but for the first time in a while, it’s quiet. Almost eerily so.

(Well, there’s still a handful of vocal assholes around, but honestly, Klaus might just prefer an enthusiastic dead marching band over judgmental fathers. ‘Quiet’ is relative.)

Allison doesn’t hesitate to drop down beside him and lean into his side, enough to feel the warmth of her skin but not to wrinkle the delicate silk of her blouse. It’s nice, that lack of hesitation, because he knows without a doubt that it never would have happened a few weeks ago. It kind of reminds him of when they were kids, young enough that his breath didn’t smell like booze and Allison’s clothes didn’t smell of disgust and cigarette smoke, back when she would rest her head on his shoulder, slip her hand in his when the nights dragged on and the stars fanned out. 

He’s changed a lot since then, in many ways and many directions, and she has too, but he likes that they’ve started to find their way back to this simple coexistence.

Vanya’s a little more timid, which is painfully normal, but at least she’s willing to sit with them at all, which is a marked improvement from when they were actual kids. 

“Well, isn’t this a cozy little sister sesh,” he says, throwing an arm loosely around Vanya’s shoulder. Pins and needles prickle across his skin as it comes into contact with whatever weird supernatural mojo she has cooking in her tiny form, but he’s used to losing feeling in his extremities and it makes her smile at him, so his circulation can go to hell.

“How’s your training going, Klaus?” Vanya asks. 

He waves the hand dangling off her shoulder dismissively. “Oh, same old, same old,” he sighs dramatically. “Cursed with the stale gossip of decades-gone fuddy-duddies and the tragic pleas of long-lost Romeos. Nothing interesting, really.”

Allison clears her throat a little roughly, grimacing a fraction but bravely soldiering on. Mom keeps trying to tell her to stop straining her voice, but Allison is stubborn and their brothers are knuckleheads who keep forgetting the fragments of sign language they try to learn, so it’s a losing battle. Luther and Vanya usually argue or guilt-trip her into limiting her speech to a few sentences at a time, and Allison makes sure to check in with Mom regularly, so she doesn’t seem to be doing too much damage, at least.

Klaus is one of the few among them who can actually keep up with the sign language, but Allison herself prefers trying to talk anyway, so what is a brother to do?

“Any luck conjuring?” she asks, and her voice doesn’t actually sound as painful as it did last week so hey, progress!

For a split second, he stupidly thinks she means Dave. His shoulders drop and his arm slithers away from Vanya, and suddenly his sisters are too close. But she doesn’t know about Dave, of course, doesn’t know about the sleepless nights, the nightmares, the so-much-worse good dreams where Dave is alive and Klaus is happy. She doesn’t know and he isn’t going to tell her, so he has to get his act together.

He hums idly, stretching out his legs and tilting back his head to avoid their eyes. “Sure,” he says. “Loads. I’m a real spirit phone, baby, who are you trying to reach?” He wiggles his eyebrows and bats his eyelashes, making both sisters roll their eyes. Double points.

“What about making them real? Like Ben?” Vanya asks, and that’s a whole other ballpark that he is firmly not interested in. He’s never really been a sports guy, more of a band kid without any of the instruments or spirit or skill, and he thinks he’s confusing his metaphors.

“Why would we want that?” he asks lightly. “Far too ugly for one room, trust me. Might give poor Luther nightmares, you know how sensitive the big guy is.”

Allison shoves his shoulder, sending him tipping into Vanya, and he considers sprawling across her lap like an overwhelmed Victorian hostess, but ultimately decides not to try his luck. She’s still faintly buzzing, and there is a not impossible chance she might send him careening across the courtyard at one wrong move.

“You should try,” Vanya suggests, and he’s glad he opted against claiming her as a fainting couch because her ‘nicest sibling’ privileges have officially been revoked. 

(Granted, calling the sister that literally almost brought about the destruction of mankind due to deeply harboured resentment towards the rest of them his “nicest sibling” is probably some kind of oxymoron anyway. He’s not sure who the nicest is. Ben’s a bitch, Luther’s an idiot, and Five’s a little psycho. Diego, maybe? God, their family’s a mess.)

“I don’t want to,” he says delicately, and no, he is not pouting. He’s being very mature about this, actually, because all he really wants to do is stick out his tongue and tell them to fuck off. 

Allison doesn’t say anything, but the disapproval practically oozes off her in waves. He feels like a little kid refusing to put away his toys, and that isn’t _fair_ because they never even had toys growing up.

“Don’t be such a baby,” Diego says, because apparently the others have finished their own training and have decided to gang up on him. They’re all making their way over to the three of them on the grass, Diego with his stupid empty knife belt, Luther pulling his stupid trenchcoat back on, and Five with his stupid schoolboy shorts.

“You still haven’t been able to manifest Ben today,” Five says, the little shit. “Have you even tried?”

“Five,” Vanya says reproachfully, which immediately wins her nice status back. Klaus is a big fan of Vanya, actually, she’s his favourite, Ben can suck it. Well, if he were here, anyway.

Klaus really wants to tell Five where he can shove it, because he may not be as sweaty as Diego or as buzzy as Vanya, but he’s been training just as hard as any of them for the past few hours, even if they can’t tell. But it won’t get him anywhere, he knows, and besides, he is kind of curious where Ben’s gotten to.

“Benjamin hasn’t been around,” he says, unfolding himself from the ground. “But since you’re all so pushy, I can try to give him a call.”

They’re not as graciously appreciative of this as they should be, but Klaus lives a thankless life, really, and it’s all very martyr-like of him. Resigned to his fate, he takes a step away from them, because he’s never entirely sure where Ben’s ghostly ass will show up when he’s summoned and it’s only polite to make sure it doesn’t end up being inside one of their siblings. Talk about awkward family dinners.

“Do you, uh, need anything? Like one of those spirit boards Dad had?” Luther asks. 

Klaus stares at him blankly for a moment, just to watch him squirm. Slowly, he raises his hands, palms out, _Hello, Goodbye_. Luther flushes a little and shuffles his feet, which honestly serves him right. Klaus hasn’t tried to use a spirit board since he was eight, when Dad decided the more efficient way to reach the spirit world was to just chuck him in their tomb, save some time.

He sees Allison smile at him just as he closes his eyes, and it makes him feel oddly guilty, so he decides to ignore it, as well as the assortment of ghosties present and accounted for. They’re not who he’s looking for right now, so they can feel free to head out anytime now.

Summoning Ben is always a strange experience. He’s usually not too far away, so all Klaus really has to do is think about him really hard and pretend he can feel his brother’s deathly presence at his side, all set to start bitching and being all-around ungrateful. Sometimes, if Ben is being stubborn, Klaus has to kind of tug at the pit in his chest he’s come to associate with his powers, but that usually does the trick.

For some reason, it doesn’t happen as easily this time. Maybe it’s because he has an unwelcome audience, even more so than usual, or maybe it’s because he swears he can still feel Dad’s gaze on his neck even though he hasn’t seen the old man since his sisters distracted him. Maybe Ben is just in a mood and is extra resistant to being bossed around. Whatever the reason, Klaus really doesn’t want to give his siblings yet another reason to think he’s failed completely, so he tugs harder.

“Klaus?” 

Success.

Now to make the little twerp tangible. Klaus wrinkles his brow and settles in to wrangle Ben’s wayward form back into the land of real boys and poltergeists. It feels like trying to pull a bag of cats through a keyhole, way harder than he’s grown used to doing for family dinners, but Klaus has always been the stubborn one, and he refuses to keep being the failure, too.

“Klaus, how did you - I think you did something, I couldn’t - ”

Finally, Klaus feels the faint flicker that tells him he’s done the miraculous and brought Ben to corporeality.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Diego says loudly, which is not the usual reaction to seeing their beloved brother.

“Oh, my God,” Vanya squeaks, which is a little much. Klaus knows he’s amazing and everything, and a little appreciation for once is nice, but this feels a little performative.

Opening his eyes reveals all his siblings, dead and alive, staring with absolute horror, which, rude. He opens his mouth to say something, annoyed, but gets distracted by Ben, who surges forward to grab his arm tight, which is an absolute no-no and goes against pretty much all of the ground rules they laid out those months ago.

“Klaus,” Ben says tightly. “They can see them. Not just me. You made them all - ”

Luther stumbles away from Margaret, looking a little like Klaus’s glamorous nausea powers have evolved to affect the living, too. 

Shit.

Klaus whirls around, seeing all the ghosties that have been roaming the courtyard now outlined in the familiar blue.

_Shit._

This is where Klaus’s mind falters to a stand-still, however, because he recognizes the five ghosts, has become reluctant bosom buddies with them, and they’re horrific, sure, if a little boring, but there had been six ghosts in the courtyard.

Making a handful of ghosts visible to his siblings is an idea that Ben has floated by him before. He’s never really given it much consideration, though, because the thought of that many ghosts being tangible, however briefly, is not enticing. When Vanya mentioned it, his gut reaction was _fuck no_ , but honestly, he might have been a little tempted, if only because he’s sure it would get him out of training more, and also because the past few hours of straining to banish one asshole have made the remaining ghosties quieter and almost docile, which means his siblings’ little pea brains are less likely to explode if he did make them visible. However, Klaus lacks fine motor control, both in real life and with his powers. Making multiple ghosts visible means making all of them within radius visible, including Dad.

Dad, who had definitely been in the courtyard when they’d started training.

Dad, who Klaus can’t see right now, but whose presence is palpable, looming over them like a shadow.

Dad, who his siblings don’t know is hanging around, and the sight of whom may actually cause several mental breakdowns and, potentially, another apocalypse.

If Vanya ends the world (again) because of Klaus’s reckless stupidity, Five will never let him live it down. Or live at all.

“Klaus - what - ” Diego says, but doesn’t continue any further, possibly because Margaret starts keening, loud and shrill, and it seems to put him off his game.

Ben’s fingers are still digging into Klaus’s arm, and if he wakes up with a bruise tomorrow he’s going to be pissed.

“Fuck,” he says. “Fuck, I didn’t mean - goddamnit, hang on, I’ll - ”

“Make them shut up!” Five yells, hands clamped to his ears, eyes big and wild. He keeps staring at Margaret with a hard look, even though Road Rash Randy has to be the bigger concern since he’s inches away from taking a swipe at the psycho’s guts.

Klaus’s heart feels like it’s about to explode, jack-hammering away in his chest, and his vision is tunnelling a little bit, air getting sucked out of his lungs, but now is really not the time for a panic attack so he has to fight it back. He squeezes his eyes shut and copies the others, covering his ears in a futile attempt to get just enough peace to think for a fucking moment.

The thrumming in his chest reminds him of Vanya’s weird static electricity, and that’s a good sign, maybe, because he just has to focus on suppressing it. He feels it expand, spreading from his heart to his fingertips, setting his whole body ablaze, and only Ben’s vice grip on his arm reminds him what a human body is supposed to feel like. 

The thrumming takes over everything, blocking out the sounds of the ghosts, the cursing of his siblings, the beating of his own heart, and Klaus can feel each ghost as it moves, like a fly on a spiderweb. He focuses on the static, gathers it all together, and squeezes.

Ben’s grip disappears from his arm.

Klaus sways where he stands, eyes falling open, feeling like a balloon that’s lost its tether, and the ghosts are still there. But they’re not blue anymore, and his siblings look relieved, and Ben is saying something that Klaus can’t hear.

He closes his eyes and falls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I hear you wanted the siblings to find out what the ghosts were like


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am officially done with my exams and, with them, the semester, so I finally have time and energy to write, at least until the start of the next :)
> 
> I've been gone a while, so I gift you with the longest chapter in this fic so far, mostly because five wouldn't shut up

Ben is talking to him. 

It’s a familiar murmur, indistinct and soft, which means he isn’t really trying to get Klaus’s attention. Klaus had discovered years ago that Ben likes to fill the silence, hear his own voice, and he doesn’t know if it’s meant to drown out the other ghosts or just to satiate Ben’s boredom, but either way, it’s soothing in its normality. There’s been so little of that in their life lately.

Ben will probably want him to open his eyes and actually communicate, but that seems like an insurmountable challenge and Klaus is quite enjoying this peace, actually. 

He can hear crying somewhere in the room behind him, broken German in a raspy voice that tells him it’s probably that asshole with the goddamn frog in his throat that won’t shut up, and there are one or two other ghosts around, shuffling and moaning as desired. But it’s all distant, safely apart from him as Klaus focuses on Ben’s idle chatter, words still unknown, floating between consciousness and darkness.

Of course, since his life is rarely kind and he has an eyewitness account proving that the Higher Power genuinely dislikes him, this blissful brain break doesn’t last long.

Ben’s voice drops off and something subtle in the air changes, meaning someone else has entered the room. Klaus’s first thought is  _ ghost _ , immediately followed by the worst thought of  _ Dad _ , but Ben must have known he was awake the whole time because he quickly moves to reassure.

“It’s Diego,” he says softly from somewhere around Klaus’s ear. “Get up, Klaus. He’s not going to leave.”

With great reluctance, Klaus opens his eyes.

He’s vaguely surprised to find himself in his own room, safely tucked into his bed, under the covers and all. Luther must have carried him, since the last thing Klaus remembers is falling like a bag of rocks in the courtyard after a lovely little performance that he is carefully not thinking about. He can’t imagine the big guy actually tucking him in, though, so maybe Mom was here, or Allison was feeling particularly maternal. 

Warily, Klaus turns his attention to the doorway, where Diego stands rigid, all tense lines and shadows. Feeling like there are weights tied to his arms, Klaus waves.

Diego breaks from his statue impersonation and steps inside, thankfully into the soft light from the fairy lights that someone must have been kind enough to turn on. Klaus is guessing Vanya’s responsible for that one, though it’s amusing to picture Five thoughtfully arranging the string of lights that he’s called childish more than once before. The psycho vehemently denies being soft in any way, but Klaus knows better. He’s determined to prove it, too, he just has to get the old-timer to cooperate for once in his stubborn life.

Ben coughs lowly, snapping Klaus’s attention back to the brothers currently with him, which is good since Diego’s looking pretty murderous. Considering the state of his thoughts and the lack of sensation in most of his extremities, Klaus highly doubts he’ll be able to make Ben corporeal anytime soon, which might make things particularly awkward if Ben has to sit back and watch on helplessly as Diego finally murders Klaus. He will quite literally never live it down. 

“Klaus,” Diego says in a carefully measured voice, which is so unlike him that Klaus immediately knows he must have been coached. “You’re awake. Good.”

Diego does not sound pleased. Klaus debates whether to feel offended or not, but ultimately decides he’s too tired for that right now. Besides, the sooner Diego leaves, the sooner Klaus has to confront what led to this point, and he will happily put that off for as long as Ben will let him.

“You know I need my beauty sleep,” Klaus says, which, as far as avoiding fights goes, might not be the best path. Diego’s jaw tightens.

“That wasn’t sleeping, Klaus,” he says, still in that stilted, foreign voice. “You passed out.”

Klaus waves a hand, aiming for careless and achieving more of a drunken wobble. “Po-tay-to, po-tah-to,” he says breezily, ignoring Ben’s eye roll.

It’s almost a relief to see Diego’s anger as his fragile mask cracks because it assures Klaus that he hasn’t woken up in some alternate universe where any of his siblings are capable of handling their emotions like mature adults. Now that would be awkward.

“Did you hear me?” Diego growls. “You  _ passed out _ . Not to mention the whole - ghost thing.” For a moment, he wavers, looking queasy. Klaus is vividly reminded of the German dude and can’t help glancing to the corner, where the guy is watching the proceedings with a vaguely malevolent curiosity. At least he isn’t coughing. 

Abruptly, Diego changes tracks, perhaps deciding that the ‘ghost thing’ is so far outside his comfort zone that he’s willing to abandon it entirely. Klaus sympathizes. “When was the last time you ate, dipshit?” Diego asks in righteous fury.

Klaus squints at him for a moment. Tilts his head to the left, then to the right. Opens his mouth, closes it. Gives up and turns to Ben.

Ben raises an eyebrow. “I haven’t been around, Klaus. You banished me,” he says, which is news to Klaus and sends him reeling, but Diego interrupts before he can recover or explore  _ that  _ little claim any further.

“You’ve been missing meals, barely eating at dinner. You look like you haven’t slept in weeks, and you’ve been so damn jumpy lately. Now you - you do  _ that _ , with the ghosts, and you’ve been unconscious for hours, man, we’ve had Mom look you over three times - ”

“Aw, all that for little old me?” Klaus says, only half paying attention. He’s staring at Ben, who’s looking back coolly, and nothing is making sense. His thoughts feel slow and incomplete, like he’s missing something.

“All that because we weren’t sure if you were going to wake up and conjure all the ghosts again,” says a new voice, sharp and pissy. Klaus must be distracted if he missed Five’s little zappy noise.

“Five,” Diego grumbles unhappily, scowling.

“Shut up, Diego,” Five says. “You were supposed to retrieve me immediately when he woke up, not waste time  _ chatting _ .”

“ _ He  _ is right here,” Klaus puts in, because it’s quite rude to exclude him from the conversation in his own damn bedroom. 

Five turns to him sharply, expression dark enough that Klaus regrets drawing attention. Diego sags in the doorway, looking defeated. 

“Diego,” Five says tightly, not taking his eyes off Klaus. Klaus squirms, trying to earn some sympathy off Ben and getting nothing. “Go away.”

Diego bristles. “Hey,” he says. “No way. I was here first, Five, and I want to know - ”

“I don’t care what you want,” Five cuts in. “ _ Go. Away. _ ”

There is no room for argument in Five’s tone. For a guy in schoolboy shorts, he can be very commanding.

Diego frowns and looks at Klaus, searching his face for something. Klaus doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but he shrugs, spreading his hands, and Diego seems to take that as acquiescence. 

“You’re coming downstairs when you’re done up here,” he says, and it’s not a suggestion. He glares at Five again, who doesn’t even turn to acknowledge him, and reluctantly leaves. Interesting.

“So,” Klaus says, just to break the tension, because Five is just silently radiating pent-up energy and malcontent. “Lovely weather.”

“Stop talking,” Five says immediately, which,  _ so  _ rude. “And just listen to me, asshole. That little stunt you pulled in the courtyard is the  _ exact  _ reason I said you had to train - why we all have to train. I’ve been telling you for weeks now that you need to join the rest of us, with Vanya, and you’ve ignored me. The others said to leave you because your powers have always been useless, but we saw what you were capable of at the theatre. I should have realized the danger then, and certainly should have realized when you started consistently manifesting Ben - ”

“Okay, hang on,” Klaus interrupts, feeling a little pissy himself. “There’s no  _ danger _ , alright, it’s fine, I’m fine. I have been training, I’ve gotten better at conjuring - goodie for me - you just haven’t bothered to ask - ”

“Ingrid Svensson,” Five says suddenly, eyes burning. It’s random enough to make Klaus pause in his own defence. 

“Excuse me?”

Five stalks closer to the bed, looking eerily similar enough to that murderous Cha-Cha that Klaus can’t help but shrink back a bit. Five doesn’t seem to notice, but Ben does.

“Ingrid Svensson,” Five repeats, which is just as informative as the first time, i.e. not at all. “One of my targets. I was assigned to a mission in 1938 that required Ingrid’s death. It was years ago, relative to my personal timeline, but I remember her face. She was in the courtyard.”

Klaus blinks. “Ah,” he says as he tries to think back. There had been a few ghosts, but Klaus had been a bit distracted by trying to get rid of them and hadn’t paid much attention to which ones his siblings found particularly interesting. Although -- 

“Hang on, you mean  _ Margaret _ ?” Klaus asks, things clicking together. Ben looks surprised too, turning to Five with an appraising eye. “You’re the reason her insides are on the outside?”

Five frowns. “Margaret,” he repeats, tactfully sliding past the thinly veiled accusation.

Klaus waves a hand dismissively. “She never told me her name,” he explains. “Not much of a conversationalist. It got tiring referring to her as ‘the disembowelled one’ all the time, and kind of confusing when more of them were around. Hang on, just how many people have you rudely killed like that? It’s not a fun way to die, trust me. They never stop complaining.”

Five opens his mouth, but Klaus doesn’t let him speak, suddenly overcome with another thought. “Oh, my God, Five, did you kill German dude too? Are you the  _ Kotzbrocken  _ he’s always bitching about?”

The look on Five’s face suggests that, yes, he is in fact the reason German dude is around to chew at Klaus’s ear, but he doesn’t offer any other information. This is a shame, Klaus thinks, because it would be nice to have a name for the guy. Maybe he’ll let Ben choose one later.

“How many of my past - targets,” Five’s mouth twists but he soldiers on, “do you see? How many of them are hanging around?”

Klaus feels incredibly awkward. This was never a conversation he wanted to have with any of his siblings, least of all the one with the biggest entourage. “Um,” he says. “Ah. Well.”

This is, apparently, enough of an answer. Five’s face darkens and he turns away, tucking his hands deep into his pockets. He wanders over to the window and stares out, shoulders bunched up tight under his uniform blazer. Klaus desperately scrambles to find something to say.

(Sorry your legions of victims are tied to you forever? It’s okay, they blend right in with the rest of the riff-raff? Congrats on the high score?)

Ben’s stern gaze keeps Klaus’s mouth shut.

“I didn’t realize,” Five says eventually, stiffly. “Clearly I should have, but I - Well, doesn’t matter now. I’m sorry, Klaus.”

The words sound entirely alien coming from Five’s mouth, and just as alien for Klaus to hear. The apology hangs between them, entirely too large and heavy for the room, and Five makes no move to take it back or reduce its weight. Klaus struggles to push it away.

“Thanks, buddy,” he says awkwardly, steadfastly ignoring the agitated exasperation coming off of Ben in waves.

“But don’t you get it,” Five says, heated again. “This is even more reason you have to learn control of your powers. It’s dangerous,  _ you’re  _ dangerous. You have to learn to control them before you bring about another apocalypse. We only just stopped Vanya from ending the world, I won’t let you be next.”

Klaus’s hackles are immediately raised. Usually, he’s pretty good at brushing past accusations and implications, because they’ve sustained him his whole life, but he’s tired and touchy and freaked the  _ fuck  _ out and no way is Five going to sit there and tell him he’s the reason the world dies.

“I am not like Vanya,” Klaus hisses. “Things got a little out of hand today, but that isn’t - it’s not - I am not going to cause the fucking apocalypse, Five.”

“You unknowingly summoned half a dozen ghosts without trying,” Five says forcefully, full steam ahead. His remorse is no longer to be seen. “What if next time it’s more than that? Ten ghosts, twenty, fifty, all tangible and angry, out of your control? Or,” he pauses, wrestles with something. “Or maybe next time isn’t an accident. Something happens, something you don’t talk to us about - you’ve been acting weird, secretive, I know there’s something - and you decide to take it out on us, on the world. Like Vanya.”

“Fuck you,” Klaus seethes. “I wouldn’t.”

(But just this morning didn’t he say he would do anything for Dave? Even risk the world? He imagines never seeing Dave again, imagines finally getting the confirmation that his soldier is gone forever, that he doesn’t want to be here, that he can’t be, that Klaus can never see him again. That the Little Girl will never let him see Dave, never let him finally die. That he’s stuck with Daddy Dearest instead of the love of his life. He imagines an eternity of ghosts and nightmares and never getting to hold Dave’s hand, never hearing his laugh again. He imagines how easy it would be to feel all that anger and grief and fear and let it swallow him, let it swallow everything.)

“I can’t take that chance,” Five says, and there’s something hard in his voice. His eyes are distant. “I can’t, Klaus.”

Klaus shivers. Pictures the similar conviction on Luther’s face as he shut Vanya in that cage. Pictures the heavy door of the mausoleum. Imagines his siblings’ apologetic faces.  _ It’s for the best, Four. It’s too dangerous. _ It sounds like Dad.

“I’m not the only dangerous one,” he says, and only Ben notices the wobble in his voice. Ben’s been watching the two of them like an anxious sports spectator, bouncing from one brother to the other with an uneasy silence. He shuffles closer to Klaus, reassuring, but Klaus is too far gone. 

Five nods. “I know. We all are. That’s why we all have to train. But you’re the vulnerable one, the one with new, untrained powers that have already slipped out of your control once.”

The weak one, Klaus thinks. Always the weak one.

“Get out,” he says.

“Klaus,” Five says, impatient. “Listen to me, you idiot - ”

“Get out of my room, Five,” Klaus repeats, lowly, coolly. His hands are shaking. Ants are marching up his arms. “Take your ghosts with you.”

That stills the mutinous look on his brother’s face. Five’s back straightens, expression falling carefully neutral, and he nods sharply. He hovers for a split second, looking like he wants to say something more, but then thinks better of it. He snaps away without bothering to use the door.

Klaus stares at the now empty space where Five had stood and reminds himself how to breathe. The ghosts continue to talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will have more discussion of the siblings’ reactions to the ghosts, because I promise they were freaked out and have many questions, I just had to deal with five’s dumbass first and the chapter was getting too long


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it’s my birthday, and since I can’t exactly go out and celebrate this year, I decided to challenge myself to update all of my current fics. This was, perhaps, a mistake, and I’ve spent the past week cursing my life choices, but here we are. 
> 
> Also, I lied last chapter: unfortunately, no siblings in this one. I definitely intended there to be, but frankly, the past month or so has been hell and I lost the ability to do anything except work and cry over my textbooks, and writing became exponentially harder. Woo :)

After several minutes, Klaus finally feels mostly human again and his breaths come a little easier. Instead of savouring it, however, he swings to the only brother he feels reasonably equipped to face right now.

“You,” he says, jabbing a harsh finger in Ben’s direction. “Are in so much trouble, mister.”

Ben has the absolute gall to look completely innocent, as if he has no idea what Klaus could mean.

“Where have you been?” Klaus seethes, altogether too disoriented from Five’s latest accusations to bother with being polite or reasonable. “It’s been a circus here, and the last I saw you, you didn’t say anything about taking a vacation.”

Ben narrows his eyes. “Klaus,” he says slowly, as if testing something. “You mean it wasn’t intentional? You banished me. Or, at least, I think that’s what it was,” he adds fairly.

Klaus blinks at him, hoping his brain will kick in any time now to process that in any meaningful way. No dice.

“No, I didn’t,” he says. “I can’t banish ghosts, Ben, we know this. It’s been one of the bigger pains in my ass, actually – or it was, before Daddy Douche popped up for a weekend visit and Five decided to make me his new apocalypse trigger.”

“You did,” Ben insists. “You were asleep, and I was trying to keep most of the ghosts away, but you know how they are. It got really crowded and Dad – ” For a split second, Ben wavers, something flickering behind his eyes, but he composes himself quickly. “I think you must have – I don’t know, heard him, maybe? You were still asleep, but your hands started glowing again, except it didn’t feel like it usually does when you manifest me. Suddenly everything was just… blue, and far away. Like you were pushing us somewhere. I managed to hold on, I think, but everything was kind of fuzzy for a while. Sometimes I could hear you, but I couldn’t get through until you summoned me in the courtyard.”

Klaus shakes his head, but less in denial and more in disbelief. “No-o,” he says again. Pauses, horribly quiet. Then, “Oh, Christ on a cracker. I really banished you?”

Ben nods mutely.

Klaus draws in an unsteady breath. “Fuck,” he says. “That’s not – Ben, I have no idea how I did it. I wasn’t even awake! I just – did that, in my sleep?”

“At least we know your training’s working,” Ben inputs, entirely unhelpfully.

This, unfortunately, unleashes a whole new tidal wave of panic. Klaus almost doubles over from the force of it, stopped only by the fact it would likely send him tumbling out of bed. He wheezes. “Ben,” he says faintly. “That means – they’re getting stronger. My powers. _In my sleep_. If I can banish, then that means – what if I manifest them? In the courtyard, that was an accident; I was trying to focus on you, but it got out of hand, and I didn’t even notice. Ben. Benny. What if I do that in my sleep?”

“You won’t,” Ben is quick to assure, but he sounds twice as uncertain as is healthy for Klaus’s mental health. “Klaus, it’s okay.”

It isn’t, though, it isn’t. It’s so far from okay. Klaus is still so new to his powers, even after thirty years; he’s decades behind his siblings, all except Vanya, because he’s done everything he can to stifle and smother the ghosts under a steady stream of chemicals since he was a teenager. He has no idea what he’s doing, no idea how much he can do or how to control it, and he thought he could handle it, thought he could push through and force himself to adjust, just so long as he had the promise of Dave on the other side of it all.

But he can’t, he can’t control it, and the fear and disgust that’s been lingering on the edges ever since he first sat down to purposely stretch the boundaries of his powers are larger than ever, threatening to overwhelm him.

Dad warned him, he thinks distantly. Back in that barbershop. Only scratched the surface, that’s what he said. But Klaus never thought – not like this. Five can’t be right. He can’t be.

Ben is talking again, but Klaus is too busy to listen, too far gone, spiraling ever further in a dizzying freefall. His powers are growing, and it’s his own fault because he chose to train them, chose to throw himself into it headfirst without stopping for a moment just to _think_ , distracted by the memory of blue eyes and the best damn smile Klaus has ever seen and horrifically bright red staining his hands.

Klaus had every warning in the world. Dad, talking about his potential, the way he poisoned himself (isn’t that better, though? Isn’t it better to let himself rot from the inside out rather than lose control completely until he proves Five right, until he finishes what Vanya started?). Hell, they all saw what happened to Vanya after years of suppressing her powers, and he actually chose to do that to himself. They stopped her from going nuclear, barely, but that doesn’t mean they can stop him in time. But they’ll try, of course they’ll try, and the solution will be obvious, reasonable, even. Luther has already locked away one sibling out of fear and caution, and the basement cell is destroyed (he can still see Seven behind the glass, crying and begging for help, nails scrabbling – ), so the easiest place to keep him, the logical choice, would be the mausoleum –

“ _Klaus!_ ”

He flinches away from the sharp voice before he fully remembers where he is. Slowly it trickles back, the sight of Ben anxiously hovering going a long way to untangle the thorny web he’s fallen into. Klaus has to take a minute before he can uncurl himself from the ball he’s scrunched himself into.

“It’s going to be okay,” Ben says firmly, and to his credit, he lies very convincingly. “But you have to talk to the others. They can help.”

Help, Klaus knows, is a subjective term. Dad almost definitely thought he was helping when he stole Seven’s powers, when he threw Four to his worst fears. Who, exactly, it was helping is largely up for debate, but Dad would have thought it was the right thing, the best choice.

Klaus doesn’t know what his siblings’ help will look like for him. With Vanya, they’ve banded together, however reluctantly, to acclimatize to themselves and each other. They make sure there’s always someone for Vanya to turn to if her powers get too much, and they’ve even implemented tentative family practices in the hopes of easing some of that resentment she still has burning away, and Little Girl help them, it’s working. But that’s help for Vanya. Help for Klaus, for Number Four, for the unreliable one, the unstable one, the weak and vulnerable one – what will that look like? Stone walls?

“Think I’ll pass on the family care and share,” Klaus says. His voice sounds raspy, unfamiliar. “But thanks for the offer.”

“We need to talk about this,” Ben insists in a warning tone. “All of us. You made a bunch of ghosts real, Klaus, that’s a big deal.”

“Nope,” Klaus says, and it takes everything he has to make himself sound cheery. “No, nein, nyet.” He shoves the blankets away from him, ignoring the way his hands shake, and shuffles to the end of the bed.

Ben looks dangerously mutinous, so Klaus hastens to interrupt whatever reprimand his brother is formulating.

“Hey, if I can banish the big bad ghosties now, do you think we can get Tuberculosis over there to fuck off?” He waves a hand emphatically towards German dude, who graces him with an impressive stink-eye. “Get some practice in before I send Dad back to lecture the little girl.”

Ben’s eyebrows draw in tight over his eyes, confused, but Klaus wasn’t actually looking for a response anyway, because he has no intention of letting Ben speak freely until he gets the memo that some things are better left undisturbed.

(Klaus knows he’s on a tight time limit, here. He has very few options, and one of the most appealing and obviously helpful is to immediately hit the pavement and slide back into familiar habits. At this point it wouldn’t even be much of a moral struggle. It’s no secret that 90% of Klaus’s drive to stay sober has been the promise of Dave, but – it’s been so long. And at this rate, there’s every chance his powers will eat him alive before he ever sees his soldier again. Wouldn’t it better if he just gave in? Easier, certainly. He’ll be saving his siblings from the risk of him raising an army of undead, too, and that just seems polite. They can’t say he never does anything for them when he’s willing to take one for the team so that they don’t have to hold a gun to his head next.)

(But, fuck, maybe Klaus has grown in the past few weeks – months, maybe, if he counts Vietnam, and he always counts Vietnam – because he doesn’t know if he _wants_ to fall back into the drugs. He still has cravings like nobody’s business, and sometimes the thought of just one more hit threatens to bring him to his knees, but he’s been slowly fumbling his way through learning who he can be without the drugs, and he – hasn’t hated it. There are people counting on him now, kind of. Ben needs him to be with their family, and the others are slowly opening up again, and, always, DaveDaveDave. Klaus doesn’t know if he’s willing to give that up. He’s just – he doesn’t know what to do. What if Dad sticks around forever? What if he can’t control his powers? What if – )

Ben trails behind him, thankfully quiet, if deafening in his disapproval, as Klaus picks his way out of his room. He hovers in the hallway, straining to hear signs of his siblings, but it’s a lost cause. There’s a throng of ghosts around him, an exclusive party, and Klaus can’t hear a thing over their complaining. He debates turning around and going out the window, but he still feels shaky enough that it’s not unlikely that he’ll slip and fall. Which, while not entirely unappealing a thought, probably won’t do any good, since Klaus really doesn’t want to add a lecture from the Little Girl on top of everything else.

As he hits the stairs, Klaus wonders if there’s any way he can bypass the confrontation and interrogation his siblings are doubtlessly planning. Considering his luck lately, not to mention the universe's apparent opinion of him, he reluctantly comes to the conclusion that the odds are not in his favour. When are they ever?


End file.
